Then he shook his head and continued walking off toward the auditorium, strumming his guitar as he went, leaving me with a view of a tight ass in tight black pants.
What I had meant to do was ask him when a good time to interview him would be. I totally messed that one up.
I watched him go for a few beats, then I decided to give up on him for the day and try again tomorrow. Tonight I was going to concentrate on the music and just the music. If the band wanted to play hard to get with interviews, fine (and if I was going to bungle up some interviews with my big, fat mouth, fine). That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to observe and then compose the best damn live show review. Ever.
I shuffled back to the bus, gathered my purse, my notepad, my tape recorder, and the venue’s All Access Pass, and went to go catch Hybrid’s soundcheck.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I discovered that although I got a perverse sense of importance and satisfaction standing at the side of the stage with Jacob and all the other privileged people, the best place to see the band, any band really, was to be in the crowd with the rest of the fans. Though I was closer to the band on the side stage and had a great viewpoint for watching Sage work the guitar or Graham pound away on the drums like a man possessed, it felt removed and distant, like I was merely observing them. I wasn’t part of the experience. So fifteen minutes into Hybrid’s monstrous set, I excused myself from Jacob’s stoic company and made my way down the stairs at the side of the stage and into the Kansas City crowd.
I let the human tide, ebbing and flowing toward the stage like multi-colored water, take me, and within seconds I found myself squished in the middle of the floor, in between two metal heads who only stopped banging their heads to take a hit of pot. I was in my element here, and though I got a few curious glances at my All Access Pass (which I did wear a little too proudly), people paid attention to the band. And so did I.
The acoustic set from the night before was a nice change, but this show was the real Hybrid, a living breathing band that aptly mixed Sabbath-like downtuned licks with a dash of Jim Morrison lyrics and the funky, blues groove of Muddy Waters. During that show I forgot all about the talk I had with Robbie earlier, or the unexpected sass I delivered to Sage. I was just a fan, always a fan, a worshipper who talked to God in her head but fell to her knees at church.
There were lights and smoke, from the stage and from the audience, and Robbie and Sage gave the crowd everything they had. They were dueling against each other, pushing themselves for glory, and by that act, pushing each other. They were both winners here with Robbie leaping into the crowd like a soaring Messiah, making love to the microphone pole, telling the world his secrets with the deepest of growls; and Sage slinking along the sides, surging forward to join his equal, then disappearing into the shadows of the stage, giving the audience only a glimpse of his blistering fingers and the incinerating peels of sound he demanded from his guitar.
It was an epic, flawless, tingling-deep-in-my-belly type of show. I took notes between songs—just the feelings flowing through me or descriptions of the audience. Their enthusiasm built me up at times, and when a solo threatened to bring the crowd to its knees, I was sinking down, down, down with them, tears in my humble eyes.
It was a high unlike any other, a wave of perfection and human unity. It was all the purple prose in the world. It was magic.
Until I had a beer thrown in my face.
It happened near the end of the show, during one of my favorite songs, “A Loss to Win.” It wasn’t an accident. I was standing there, mouth agape at Robbie’s power, when I felt someone sidle up to me. I barely paid them any attention until I noticed their eyes flowing up and down my body and settling on the pass around my neck. They burned there, and I could have sworn my chest flared up with heat.
I took my eyes off the stage where Sage and Mickey were serenading each other with their strings and looked down. A short girl with Rod Stewart hair, dyed black as coal, and giant boobs was staring at the pass. I could have sworn she licked her lips, which were lined with dark red lipstick. She was dressed head to toe in black and her eyes were dark and soulless.
“Can I help you?” I asked unsurely. I didn’t feel like getting into an altercation, but I was at least taller than she was and a good deal lighter where it mattered.
“Can I have your pass?” she asked sweetly. She finally ripped her eyes off my chest and looked at my face. I shuddered internally. She looked crazier than I originally thought, and I immediately knew who I was dealing with—Sparky, one of the GTFOs.
“Um, and who are you?” I knew to handle the wannabe devil worshipper with care but I was annoyed I had to deal with her during a song I had been waiting for.
“Someone who deserves it more than you, bitch,” she answered. One of the metal heads in front of us looked behind him to see what was going on, and upon seeing her, he shot me a “good luck with that” smile and turned back around.
I put my hand to my pass and clutched it in my hand. “I don’t know who you are, sorry. This is my pass. I’m a journalist.”
I put my attention back to the stage and prayed she’d go away.
She sidled closer and reached out with her hand, attempting to close it around mine.
“Give me your pass!” she screeched like a jungle monkey.
I was flabbergasted but quick to act, and I backed up into the crowd, feeling their hands at my back, supporting me for the meantime. “Holy fuck, what’s your problem, you psycho!?”
“You don’t deserve it, you fake fan. You know nothing about him and I was here first,” she said coming forward, her black-nailed hand outstretched like some crazy fucking witch.
I put my palm out to stop her, and for some reason it did. But it didn’t stop her from taking the cup of beer that she had in her other hand and throwing it in my face.